I sit up. “To the police?”
“Yes. We’ll go this afternoon. After school.”
“Mom—it’s enough for me if Danny isn’t around.”
“It’s not enough for me. He did wrong. He’s going to pay.”
I sputter. “That means I pay. I’d have to get in there—”
She’s nodding. “Yes, you’ll be involved. Of course you’ll be involved.”
“I don’t want to talk to the cops!”
“Angelyn, you are done protecting him.”
My stomach twists. “It wasn’t only me who protected him.”
“What’s that?” Mom says. A real warning.
“Why this, why now?” I ask. Quietly.
“You just be ready,” she says. “This afternoon. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll be done.”
I turn my head.
“Do you hear me?”
I nod, once.
Then: “Have you forgotten,” I say, “that three years ago we told these same police that nothing happened between Danny and me? That nothing ever could happen? They will laugh at me—or worse.”
Mom says, “I didn’t know then. I do now. I’m on it.”
My mouth puckers.
“Angelyn, you stop right there.”
“Mom, I didn’t say anything. But, yeah, I’ll shut up. I’m good at that.”
“Next we’ll work on that attitude.” She’s icy.
I tug at my seat belt. “You can let me off ahead.”
Everyone is in place at Ag. Mom pulls smoothly to the side.
“Which one is your boyfriend? I haven’t forgotten that.”
“No one,” I say, wrestling the backpack out of the cab.
“It’s the tall boy, isn’t it? The one who’s always watching.”
I swing around carefully. She means Steve.
“He’s just a guy.”
“You never told me about him,” Mom says.
I pop the door. “Okay. Bye.”
“Introduce me to your boyfriend.”
I look around. “Mom, no.”
“Oh yes,” she says. “If he’s in your life, then I am going to know him.”
I stumble from the truck, dragging the pack, hoping she’ll stay inside.
A door opens behind me.
“Mom,” I say, clenched teeth, keeping on along the roadside.
She passes me, striding.
“I’m Angelyn’s mother,” Mom says, stopping at Steve on the sidewalk.
His expression doesn’t change. His no-expression.
She sticks her hand at him. “I’m Sherry Stark.”
His eyes flick from her to me.
“Hey,” he says. No color to it.
Her hand floats in the air between them.
Behind Steve, Charity grins. The other kids watch too.
My face is hot. I stand there with the backpack.
Mom stomps past on her way back. Seconds later the truck goes by.
Steve steps off the sidewalk.
“You don’t like my mom,” I say, walking up.
He shrugs.
“Wait, are you pissed at me too?”
“I’m not thrilled,” Steve says.
I lean away from him. “Why?”
“You never came back on Monday when you went off with that girl.”
“Oh.” Monday is forever ago. “Well, lunch was almost over.”
Steve says, “Okay, and what about yesterday?”
I look at him blankly.
“The reservoir, Angelyn. You said you’d go. I waited for you—again.”
The reservoir. “I was out of town. Mom took me to Sacramento.”
He dips his chin. “Bet that broke your heart.”
Charity laughs.
I focus on Steve. “I had a shit time. Does that make it better?”
“Nope. You have got to stop flaking on me.”
It’s one thing too many. My eyes fill. I can’t help it.
I shoulder the pack. “See you.”
He catches a strap. “Wait.”
We face each other.
Steve points to the backpack. “Your mom took you for that, right?”
I nod. “Got the backpack. Yay.”
He squints. “What else happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“To make it a shit time.”
Damn.
“Angelyn, hey.”
I wipe my eyes. “Don’t ask me that.”
“I’m asking. This whole thing is too weird, and me not knowing.”
“Weird is a good word for it,” I say.
“Tell me what’s going on and maybe we can get somewhere.”
“Where do you want us to be?” I ask.
“I want us to be like we were,” Steve says slowly.
I shake my head. “No.”
He takes a step in. “Ange.” Charity adjusts, peeking around.
I flip a hand at her, and the rest. “They’re always here. Can’t they all go someplace else?”
Steve looks. “Oh, them. Shoo.” He waves his arms. “Git!”
Most of the kids pretend to be doing something else. Charity pouts.
I fight a smile. “I can still see them.”
He walks in tight. “How about now?”
I see his chest, his collarbone, his shoulders. Him.
“Steve. This is not what I want.”
He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “This is me blocking your view. That’s all I’m doing.”
I look up. “Why can’t you be an ass all the time? So I’d know.”
A flicker of a grin. “Angelyn, stay. Anything else, we’ll figure it out.”
I blink at him. “Mostly, I’m tired. I only want to rest.”
Steve says, “Rest here.” Very quiet. “I miss you when you’re not around.”
I stand with him outside their eyes.
“You missed yesterday,” Mr. Rossi says when I come into World Cultures.
I barely look at him. “I’ll get a note.”
The girls are at their desks. They stop talking as I come down the aisle.
Jacey lowers her eyes. Charity watches with bright curiosity.
“Hi,” I say deliberately.
Charity purses her lips. “Angelyn, are you okay?”
I slam in—“Just great!”—and drop my backpack at my feet.
“That was so sad,” she says, “outside, when you were crying.”
“I was not crying.” Shut up, Angelyn! Shut up.
Charity’s desk creaks. “Steve told us you were never coming back.”
It takes the breath out of me, him talking.
Jacey looks over. “That was all he said, Angelyn.”
I nod to her, stiffly.
The bell rings. Mr. Rossi stands and calls for the homework.
I unzip the backpack and dig out my text. Thumbing through, I find last week’s homework. Thursday’s work. I don’t have Friday’s work, or Monday’s, or yesterday’s. Three zeroes. No, four. Mr. Rossi doesn’t take late work.
I suck.
No one is passing work forward. People are switching seats.
I look at Jacey. “What’s going on?”
She picks at her book cover. “That report thing.”
Shit. “The report’s due now?”
“Part of it, I think. He said yesterday.”
“Angelyn!” Charity says. “Did you get the notes from that girl?”
Jeni’s notes. I remember getting them. “Yeah,” I say shortly.
The noise around us rises. Even the back-row boys look busy.
Mr. Rossi says my name.
“What?” I say, not too friendly.
“Your partner isn’t here.”
“No,” I say. “She won’t be.”
“That makes you group leader. And spokesman for your project.”
I shrug, feeling slightly sick.
“You up for it?” he asks.
“Oh, always,” I say. The girls snicker.
/>
His face pinks. “Moving on. Dylan, start us off. Your group had India.”
The Dylan kid stands, rattling off statistics like he’s been programmed. I dip into my backpack, pushing books aside, flipping through papers, searching for Jeni’s small and neat printing.
Charity’s desk scrapes mine. “You’re going to use the notes, aren’t you?”
I slide forward. “Don’t talk to me.”
Dylan finishes. Mr. Rossi marks something on a clipboard.
“Who’s next?” He scans the class. “Angelyn. Are you ready?”
“I was absent.”
“Yes, but you’ve had time to come up with something.”
“Jeni did. I mean, we did, together, but—”
“What I need to know is where you’re at.”
“Jeni’s gone.” My voice rasps.
“So, what do you have?” Mr. Rossi says.
Charity whispers, “Use the notes!”
I grip my backpack. “Can you come back to me?”
“Sure. Katie James. Tell us about your project.”
Katie—one of three Katies in the room—stands.
“Our group has China. We’re doing the Cultural Revolution. Its history, background, impact, and aftermath.”
She goes on. How they’ve divided the tasks. The research they’ve done. The docu-short they’re producing for the class.
I hunch over the pack, pulling stuff out, piling it on my desk. On the bottom, my notebook, curved from the weight of everything else. Not Jeni’s notes.
A glance at Katie, I flip pages. Most are blank. On one, the heading:
AUSTRALIA
Under it, the notes I took:
English prisons; convicts; transport ships; work it off.
And:
Start over!!
I stare at the words. I remember writing them. I remember talking with Jeni.
Charity hisses something.
Katie finishes.
Mr. Rossi walks to our row. “Ms. Flint. What have you and Ms. Jordan been working on?”
Charity doesn’t answer.
“You girls had Italy. Where did your research take you?”
“We’re in Angelyn’s group now,” she says.
I look around. “What?”
Charity winks. “Remember how we talked about switching?”
Jacey checks us both.
“That girl left,” Charity says. “Everyone knows that we three work together.”
Mr. Rossi says, “I don’t know it. Angelyn?”
“I’m not with them,” I say.
Charity says, “Yes, you are! You’re back with Steve.”
I flinch. “Don’t talk about me.”
“What happens outside class does not concern me,” Mr. Rossi says.
“She wants Jeni’s notes,” I say.
“Do not!” Charity says.
I stare at her. “And I don’t have them. I don’t even have them.”
She sits back. “Angelyn, you lie.”
My gut swirls. “Come up and search me.”
“All right,” Mr. Rossi says. “Nobody’s switching groups.”
I face front, an arm around my notebook.
“Charity. Jacey. Do you have work to share?”
The only sound is the scratching of his pen.
Mr. Rossi looks up. “Angelyn, what do you have?”
I swallow. “Not much.”
“Something, though.”
“Yes,” I say.
He sits against his desk. “Let’s hear it.”
“Our country was Australia.” My voice is thin. Hoarse.
“Stand, please.”
I drag myself up.
“Australia’s made up of lots of different kinds of people. Sort of like the U.S.”
Chin on hand, Mr. Rossi listens.
“There were the people who were already there.”
“Indigenous peoples,” he says.
“And the ones who came later, from outside.”
“So smart,” Charity says.
He points at her. “Stop.” And waves me on.
“Some of the first who came—they were sent. Convicts. Australia was supposed to be their punishment.”
“Who sent them?” Mr. Rossi asks.
“England,” I say. “English courts. It didn’t take much to be in trouble then. People were really poor and stealing food and getting hanged for it. Kids, even. So, they started sending them to Australia instead.”
Mr. Rossi nods. “All right. What’s your angle?”
“My angle? What happened to them, I guess. The convicts.”
“You need more. How did this affect Australia as a nation?”
I glance at my notes. “That must have been Jeni’s part.”
“Come on, Angelyn. Think.”
“Whatever they did,” I say, “whyever they were sent, in Australia they could work it off. Make it good. Instead of sitting in some English prison or dying for it.”
Mr. Rossi circles a hand. “And?”
I remember something. “They couldn’t go back.”
“No?”
“They weren’t supposed to. Even after they’d worked off their time. That was hard for some, because, you know, England was the mother country. Jeni showed me this article that said people were still ashamed—” I stumble on the word. “Years later.”
“Keep going,” Mr. Rossi says.
“Convicts and their kids and even grandkids,” I say. “Ashamed and looking back to England. This article said, don’t look back. Because what they built there is better than anything that could have come before.”
I let the chair take my weight. Done.
Mr. Rossi stands. “That was good.”
I study my hands. “Uh-huh.”
“No. It was. Tie what you said into the Australian identity and—yeah.”
I look at him. “Really?”
He smiles. “Really.”
Pride shoots through me. “Okay.” I try to sound cool.
Mr. Rossi looks off. “Eric. Tell us about Vietnam.”
Eric grabs up note cards. “Sure, give me a minute.”
“That wasn’t Angelyn’s work,” Charity says.
My body tenses.
Mr. Rossi is marking something on the clipboard.
“Hello?” Charity says. “Mr. Rossi?”
He frowns. “Yes, Ms. Flint?”
“Angelyn got those notes from that girl. The ideas. Everything.”
My hands curl. “Her name is Jeni.”
“Angelyn, don’t respond,” Mr. Rossi says. “Ms. Flint, you let me worry.”
“I don’t think it’s right,” Charity says. “Her getting an A.”
He sets the board down. “Today is about points. No one gets an A.”
“Then why does she get the points?”
I face her. “Bitch, I don’t have Jeni’s notes.”
“It isn’t fair,” Charity says past me.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Her eyes get wide. “You can’t say that!”
Mr. Rossi says my name with force.
“What?” My voice crackles.
“She’s right. You can’t talk that way in here.”
“She’s right? She isn’t right about anything.”
He points to the desk by the window. “Move.”
Charity says, “Ha!”
“After class I’ll speak to you both.”
“Me?” she says as I stare at the mess on my desk.
“No,” I say.
Up the aisle, people are talking. All I can see is the door.
Mr. Rossi steps in front. “Where are you going?”
“Out,” I say, stopped between desks.
“I can excuse you for a few minutes, but—”
“I don’t belong here.”
His face softens. “Sure you do. Of course you do. More than some.”
“Oh—you’re being nice again.”
“Take a seat. We’ll talk after cla
ss.”
“You said we couldn’t talk.”
Mr. Rossi clears his throat. “Angelyn.”
I press ahead. “I’m going.”
He stands firm at the head of the aisle. I try to wind around. Mr. Rossi blocks me again.
“I don’t want you to leave like this,” he says.
“Let me by,” I say, not looking at him.
Mr. Rossi says no.
A moment, and I charge. Falling back, he grabs my arms. I wrench free.
“Freakin’ perv, let me go!”
I stop in the doorway, facing the hall.
Behind me, Mr. Rossi says, “Don’t go.” His voice is unsteady.
“Why not?” My voice shakes too.
“You did a good thing here. Don’t waste it.”
“I already screwed things up. I screwed them up with you.”
“Don’t make it worse,” Mr. Rossi says.
I turn. “You told on me. You told Miss Bass. Didn’t you?”
“Yes.” He glances back. “Now is not the time to discuss it.”
I see the class behind him. Caught up in every word.
“You don’t know me.” I say it anyway. “You play me. Hot and cold. You lift me up. Set me down. When do I know to believe you?”
Mr. Rossi is pale. “I meant every good thing.”
That stops me. “You did?” My voice is soft, like a kid’s. I frown after.
“Angelyn,” he says. “You’re crossing some lines here. They’re lines that you don’t need to cross.”
“I’m sorry.” I say it automatically. Then, again: “I’m sorry.”
“Come in,” Mr. Rossi says. “We’ll talk after class. I promise.”
“You promised before.” But I step back in. I can’t meet his eyes or anyone’s.
“Good.” He makes way for me. “Now, let’s finish the period.”
I start across the room for the desk by the window.
I hear them:
“Freakin’ perv! Tight.”
“Why’d she call him that?”
“She’s crazy.”
“What about him?”
“ ‘Hot ’n’ cold.’ Oww.”
“Angelyn always did like older guys.” Charity.
I stop. “Huh?”
Her expression: Gotcha. I check Jacey. Who’s scarlet.
My throat closes. “You—said something?”
Jacey says, “No.” Her head wags long after the word.
“We talk about you,” Charity says. “All the time. And I know.”
I’m stuck, facing the girls and the class. Some kids are grinning. Others whisper. Jacey’s head bends to her desk.
“You’re not so special,” Charity says.
Her face balloons to a target. The target. And it’s all of it. All of it.
The File on Angelyn Stark Page 16